[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

A Very Brief Play in One Act

Scene: An alley below a roadway bridge. It is a illuminated by the bridge’s street lamps, and a dim light above the door of an abandoned building. The wall of the abandoned building frames one side of the alley, and the girders of the bridge frame the other side. Aside from the structures, the alley is completely empty. Two characters enter, one from stage left, and one from stage right, meeting in the middle.

Phineus: So, Frances, we meet again.

Frances: Yes, Phineus, we do indeed meet again.

Phineus: Fortuitous.

Frances: Not at all. I’ve had this planned all along, or have you forgotten what a schemer I am?

Phineus: I have not forgotten. But to plan to meet me here, at this very moment in time, at this very spot?

Frances: Why, yes! Only fools leave things to chance. I’ve had designs on this moment in time, and on this very spot, for years.

Phineus: Why, of all places, did you pick this dump hole beneath a little roadway bridge that’s just inches away from an abandoned building, when there’s an elegantly refurbished mall just across the street? Highly illogical, Frances, and this is – after all – our time to be logical. We were very, very emotional in our last life, if you recall. Although, I am also feeling a bit wistful at the moment. I bet the food court has an ice cream parlor. Oh, how I love ice cream! Do you remember when we were playing in the sandbox last time, and you threw sand in my eyes? I cried like the babe I was and my mother did not come running, but yours did. She chastised you and made you apologize.”

Frances: I refused, but she told me I couldn’t have ice cream unless I apologized, and so finally I did. She taught me to be very fond of bribes.

Phineus: You were a very angry child.

Frances: And why shouldn’t I have been? It got me ice cream, after all. Oh, I do like this place. I know I shouldn’t. I shouldn't feel so sentimental during these transitional periods from one body to the next. But it really does get dreadfully dull not feeling anything. I’m very wealthy. I pick impeccable investments. I drive impeccable cars. I never make the wrong decision. My logic is flawless, as is yours, and others of our ilk. But I really do get tired of always being right, of always intuiting the correct answer. There is no chance. No adventure.

Phineus: We’re not supposed to feel this way. We’re not supposed to regret or desire. We’re simply here to observe and calculate and bask in the wellspring of our own intellectual thumb twirling. I hate when you bring me down to nostalgia’s level. It’s lowering us both to the murky depths of human de-evolution. We are forced to endure an emotional body for one full life cycle whilst our logical minds recline and recuperate. You are being very annoying.

Frances: Back when I was a woman – my last life, mind, and not that disastrous one before, I had a crush on a homeless man who used to sleep right over there. I used to walk over this bridge to work from my parent’s house and see him down below reading. I thought he must be a man of the world, a true walkabout. My scholarly wanderer who needed no home, no comfort, no love but the world’s whole offering. I adored him from afar. Would have been highly impractical to adore him up close, where I might notice sores or whiskey breath, or the fact that his reading material might very well be old discarded Readers Digests. No, I did not want to taint the vision I had of his entire life. Oh, Phineus, what an odd, wistful girl I was! I had a yearning, all the time. Was always stumbling over my own choices. I loved what I wanted and not what I had. I ran around in circles chasing a tail that had evolved away centuries before. I was silly all the time. Broke all the time. Yet my heart pumped firmly in favor of novelty and imagination. There was love coursing through me with no real outlet, and so I let it pour out in rivulets that encircled ideas and concepts more than the real that surrounded me from all sides.

Phineus’ impatience visibly grows as Frances regresses more and more into emotional reminiscence.

Phineus: Illogical of you to chose sentimentality over practicality. We cannot even buy a beer here. I really would have much preferred a bar for our meeting, Phineus. You know I never get as misty over the last life we lived as you do. You’re always chasing after fairy dreams. This place is dull and horrible. Underneath a bridge, right by the L.A. River – the majestic sewer. I mean, really! You do this nonsense every time you turn 30, no matter how many times you turn 30! Every other life we wind up in places like this. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the Mexican discotheque. Or the Paris Opera in 1918!”

Frances: I have not forgotten, either. But you might as well indulge me. We’ve known each other for thousands of years, Phineus, and I really only get this way every other cycle. And then, only if I’ve been drinking.”

Phineus: You’ve been drinking? What have you been drinking?

Frances: Milk, what else?

Phinueus shakes his head in consternation. He knows what kind of effect milk has on his friend.

Phineus: Why don’t we do some Calculus together? Why not focus on a way to heal democracy? Or, I know, let’s go to my place and watch Star Trek’s <i>The Best of the Vulcans from Star Trek: The Original Series to Star Trek: Oh Dear God, Where Are We NOW?!”

Frances (who has started to cry): I really thought I was in love with that homeless man, Phineus. But he was just a twig in a stream, another flight of fancy. I get things so wrong sometimes.

Phineus: As do I, Frances. But only every other time, remember? The rest of the time it’s smooth sailing from Date of Birth to Date of Death. Every other time we lived charmed, rational lives. This is just a hiccup. You feel it very time you turn 30 and realize you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do, and to perfection. You feel a little bit of guilt over letting things become such a mess during our regenerative cycles. You’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Frances (sniffling now): I know you’re right, Phineus. It’s just, I rather like the mess, you know? All this order, it’s just so….

Phineus: Universal. Infinite. Miraculous. Divine. Comforting. Easy.

Frances: And boring. I was a male prostitute once, and it was degrading and awful, often painful and literally sickening. But it was a visceral life, full of emotion. I do prefer emotion, I think, to this ridiculous monotony.

Phineus: And I prefer this ridiculous monotony to throwing myself off of a bridge because my wife dumped me.

Frances: Thousands of lives and one suicide. You’ll never let me live it down!

Phineus: Come, let’s leave this place. We can find a nice bar and recite the periodic elements table in a sing-song. Doesn't that sound like good, clean scientific fun?

Frances: No, but it does sound universally, infinitely and miraculously boring. And such is my life, except for the days when I turn 30, or have been reborn again a new and emotional being, to live and muck up my life in ways most unpleasant but beautiful. I can hardly wait, Phineus. Next time I plan to muck up the works with flourish; a real royal affair!

Phineus: And I, as always, look forward to not enjoing watching you do it.

The two friends wrap their arms around each other, and exit sage left.

End Scene